He moved to the phone on the side table and picked it up. His conversation was brief, clipped instructions delivered in a low voice. I caught fragments— “front entrance,” “afternoon,” “the birds”— before he hung up and turned back to me.
“The car will be ready in five minutes.”
I wanted to ask where we were going, what this was about, and why he was doing this. The questions piled up in my throat, but I swallowed them down. Accepting kindness had always felt like accepting debt, and I'd learned the hard way that debts always came due, eventually.
Theo sat down on one of the couches. His gaze moved between us, and when it landed on me, I saw something soften in those dark eyes. He said nothing, but the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, not quite a smile but close enough that I felt it anyway.
“Have her back before dark,” Theo said to Kade, winking.
“Should I be nervous?” I asked, looking at Theo. He laughed.
“No, honey, you will be fine. Enjoy yourself.” I nodded, smiling back at him.
“I will.” Kade's attention stayed on me, steady as a compass point. “Ready?”
I nodded again, not trusting my voice. The new coat felt like armor, or maybe a disguise. Something that made me look like I belonged in this penthouse with its too-bright windows and its careful, dangerous Alphas who kept looking at me like I might shatter.
Kade gestured toward the door, and I moved, my legs carrying me forward even though part of me still wanted to stay small, stay hidden.
The elevator was waiting when we reached it; the doors opened like a mouth. I stepped inside, and Kade followed, pressing the button for the ground floor.
The descent was smooth, so smooth I barely felt it, and I found myself staring at my reflection in the polished metal of the elevator walls. The girl looking back at me wore an expensive coat and stood next to an Alpha in a tailored suit, and for a moment I didn't recognize her at all.
My shoulders dropped without me noticing, the constant tension I carried there easing just enough that I could draw a full breath. The air in my lungs felt different, lighter, like maybe the weight I'd been carrying had shifted just slightly to one side.
Kade didn't speak during the ride down, and I was grateful for that. The silence between us felt less like emptiness and more like a pause, a space where I could exist without having to explain, defend or justify myself.
When the doors opened to the lobby, I stepped out into the cool air and let Kade guide me toward the front entrance. Through the glass doors, I could see a black car waiting at the curb, sleek and expensive like everything else in Kade's world.
The doorman opened the door for us, and I stepped out into the winter afternoon. The cold bit at my cheeks, but the coat kept the rest of me warm, and I realized I couldn't remember the last time I'd been properly warm outside.
Inside the car, it smelled like leather and something else, something clean that might have been an expensive air freshener or just the scent of money. I settled into the cushioned seat and watched Kade walk around the car to climb in beside me. The driver was a man I hadn't seen before, with gray at his temples and steady hands on the wheel.
We pulled away from the curb smoothly; the city sliding past the tinted windows like we were moving through water.
For the first few blocks, everything looked normal; the kind of normal I expected from this part of the city anyway. Clean streets, buildings that gleamed with recent construction or renovation, people in expensive coats moving with purpose. Butthen we turned, heading away from the financial district, and the scenery shifted.
I leaned closer to the window, my breath fogging the glass slightly.
Buildings here wore their damage like badges. Boarded windows cried out for care, plywood covering what had once been storefronts or apartments. Some boards had graffiti, a variety of RIP messages, and photos plastered all over them. One building had an entire corner missing, the exposed interior showing water-stained walls and dangling wires like exposed nerves.
The infrastructure crumbled at the edges. Sidewalks buckled and cracked, weeds pushing through the concrete with a determination I understood intimately. A traffic light hung crooked, its casing dented like something large had collided with it. Trash collected in gutters and doorways, and I saw a shopping cart on its side, one wheel still spinning slowly in the wind.
Evidence of destruction marked nearly every block. Cracks and crevices created valleys straight through apartment blocks. This was the poorer side of Shatter City. The side that still yielded to the destruction of the earthquake.
Burn marks scorched up the side of one building in a pattern that looked deliberate. Bullet holes pocked the brick facade of another, clustered around what had probably been windows. A memorial of flowers and candles sat on one corner, wilted and wax-streaked, the photo in the center too faded to make out clearly. Gangs had taken over down here. It was no place to live anymore.
I tracked everything with an expression I couldn't quite name. Wariness, yes, that was always there, but something else too. Recognition, maybe. This was the world I knew, the one I'd survived in. Seeing it from inside this expensive car felt strange, like watching my life through glass.
A group of people huddled around a barrel fire in an alley, and my chest tightened. I'd done that, stood around fires like that, trying to warm hands that never quite felt warm enough. One of them looked up as we passed, and for a second our eyes met before the car carried me away.
Kade sat beside me in silence, not trying to explain or apologize for the route. I appreciated that more than I could say. He just let me look, let me process, his presence solid and warm at my side.
The damaged sections eventually gave way to industrial zones, then parkland. Bare trees stood against the gray sky, and patches of snow clung to the ground in the shadows. The park seemed to go on forever, a stretch of dormant grass and frozen earth.
The car slowed, turning onto a smaller road that curved through the trees. Curiosity built in my chest, a fluttering feeling that I kept trying to suppress.
We stopped in a small parking area, empty except for our car. Through the windshield, I could see a path leading toward something that caught the light strangely, all glass and metal glinting in the winter sun.
